Improvement in preparing fiber from the bamboo



UNITED STATES PATENT QFFICE.

PHILIPP LIOHTENSTADT, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

IMPROVEMENT IN PREPARING FIBER FROM THE BAMBOO.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 11,627, dated February 16, 1864.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, PHILIPP LIOHTENSTADT, of the city, county, and State of New York, have invented or discovered a new and useful Process for Disintegrating the Fiber ot' Bamboo, so that it may be used in manufacturing cordage, cloth, mats, or pulp for paper; and 1 do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same.

My invention relates to a cheap and expeditious process for disintegrating or rendering into a fibrous or pulpy state for manufacturing purposes the tissues of the bamboo, (Bambnsrt and Bambusa artmdz'naca,) whereby I gain a greater amount of com min uted material from a given quantity of the crude material than by any other process hitherto practiced for the disintegrating of woody or vegetable substances of the character of bamboo.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my process I will proceed to describe the same.

In the reduction of vegetable substances to a fiber for manufacturing purposes a great objcct heretofore has been to destroy all the woody matter and only preserve the cellulose or cellular tissue. This process is expensive, and causes great loss in a fiber which may be utilized with great advantage and economy, so that while heretofore but from thirty to forty per cent. of the crude vegetable substance was saved in a fibrous or pulpy state lit for manufacturing purposes I actually save by my process eighty-five per cent., and sometimes more. I first take the bamboo and cutout the joints thereof, and then split up the pieces or portions of the wood into slivers of, say, half an inch in width. The slivers or pieces are then put into a vat, say, capable of holding and treating one thousand pounds of the bamboo, where they are pickled in a solution of clear lime-water, nitrate of soda, and oxalic acid. The liquid content of the vat is about five hundred gallons, and the proportions of which the pickling-liquid is made are about as follows of hot lime, one hundred pounds; of nitrate of soda, fourhundred pounds; of oxalic acid, forty pounds. The oxalic acid attacks the silica or outer coating of'the bamboo-plant and destroys it. It also acts, however, as a bleaching agent, and the quantity used may therefore be diminished if the fiber is not required to be bleached, as would be the casein cord-age, coarse cloth, mats, and rough paper. The pickling-liquid may be warmed, but not made hot enough to drive oft the oxalic acid, and the material to be treated may remain in the pickle from twelve "to twenty-four hours, after which it is removed and boiled in a solu tion of soda-ash, using about two hundred pounds of soda-ash to about one thousand of the material to be treated. This reduces the material to the condition ot'a fiber halfbleached. The material is then crushed between rolls and thendeviled,(combed,orcarded,or heckled.) and is then in condition to be spun into cordage, yarns, or other forms for manufacturing ropes, cloth, mats, &c. It, however, the fiber is to be used for paper-making, then it is taken to a pulping, heating, or grinding engine of any of the ordinary well-known kinds, Where it is converted into a pulp and thence into paper. For the finer or whiter qualities of paper the pulp may be bleached by any of the known processes.

Having thus fully described my process,what I claim therein as new is The process of separatingand disintegrating the fiber eonta-inerbin bamboo by treating it with a solution of lime, nitrate of soda, and oxalic acid, and preparing the textile material for manufacturing purposes, substantially as described.

PHILIPP LIOHTENSTADT.

WVltnesses:

A. B. STOUGHTON, H. II. PORTER. 

